Plastic egg color mixing water play science in preschool

They say to keep your titles short but I couldn’t decide what to call this so I threw in the all the words that describe this activity! This is a fun little activity for exploring water and color mixing. I have written this post with examples of questions that can be asked as the children explore the materials…

Start by putting a few drops of food color in each of your plastic eggs..

Then close the eggs up tight and lay them on their side so the color doesn’t leak out of the holes in the ends of the plastic eggs….

Now that each of your eggs have a few drops of food color, set out several containers filled with water. The water needs to be deep enough to submerse the eggs most (or all) the way under.

Investigate

Choose an egg and submerse it in the water. Draw the children’s attention to the holes in the ends of the eggs and ask the children what they think will happen if they put the egg into the water.

Explore

Now lift the egg back out of the container and start shaking the water back out. What color is the water now? Why did the water change color? Why is the water coming back out of the egg when you shake it?

Predict

What color do you think will be in the next egg? Why do you think it will be that color? Once the water goes into the tub, how will this change the color of the water in the tub?

I put out several tubs of water with plenty of eggs to mix colors in each tub…

Extend

I am sure that the children will want to open the eggs along the way so don’t be surprised by this and don’t let it rattle you. Just go with the flow and invite observations and discussion along the way…

Sink and Float observations – What happens to the eggs when they are open in the water? What happens to the eggs when they are closed in the water? Why do the closed eggs float and the open eggs sink?

What happens if we put lots of water inside some of the eggs and only a little bit of water inside the other eggs?

These are just a few of the questions you can ask to invite language and conversation during the process but the most important thing you can do is just let the children dump, shake, open, close, pour, and explore some more!

Thank you for all you do for young children!

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